I'm still here (one day at a time)

I suspect this is sort of what it's like for an expectant mother whose due date was last week: my life is about to change radically, but I don't have any idea just when--and there's nothing I can do to be any more ready than I am.  Everything is in my suitcases except for the items I am currently using; I have a box in chapel for the books that will go into storage at the last minute. I still have about 2 pounds of holy cards in my give-away box; send a self-addressed, stamped envelope (or Jiffy bag!) if you'd like some: 172 N Michigan Ave, Chicago 60601.

While I wait for that elusive visa, things keep moving along. (I certainly don't lack things to do!) One thing I am in the midst of (you might want to do this, too, after that giant "spoofing" attack on AOL) is what I think of as "password hygiene". I have gone through every one of my online accounts and beefed up the passwords. This vital information is now in a little handwritten notebook that is going to the motherhouse secretary for safekeeping. (I need to make a copy for myself, too! These new passwords are not the easy-peasey kind I have been using heretofore.)

It has also turned out to be providential that I did not arrive in London a week ago: my community here has had some unexpected needs that I've been able to help address. Yesterday that meant doing my first "J-Club" Catholic school book fair. This was at a school full of enthusiastic readers, where the second-graders were crowding around the table of "Intermediate" level books. There were also a few sixth-graders that kept edging their way toward this title; hopefully the parents will recognize their children's needs even if the kids are putting their game face on... I'm also trying to make progress on a book of my own, on the Mass. It has been in Limbo for a couple of years while so many other projects got higher priority. For now it is out, with pages in chapel for Jesus to work on with me. If I can make some headway on this, my carry-on could lighten up considerably!

Now for community news:

Some years ago, I had to convince Sister Helena to set up a Twitter account. Now she has over 14,000 followers (she left me in the dust last summer, when we were neck-in-neck at 9,000) and is getting noticed by major news/info outlets like Atlantic, HuffPost and NBC. She also appears in this movie, which offers an unexpected message of hope from the Catholic Church to people with same-sex attraction--while delivering a challenge to overly comfy Catholics:


These are real people telling their stories with amazing grace and courage; I can see where this could be very healing for people who are deeply conflicted about their orientation and their perception of the Catholic Church's stance on it.

Book Review: Saint John Paul the Great: His Five Loves

You can probably remember it as well as I: the scenes on the TV screen (or, perhaps on your computer screen—most of us were not using our phones for live video back then), the thousands upon thousands of pilgrims in Rome keeping vigil at the close of the Easter Octave of 2005. We couldn't keep a bedside vigil, but all of us stayed as close as we could, silent, praying as the great Pope John Paul, a man we knew was a saint—a man many of us felt we knew personally—rendered his noble soul to God. Days later, the banners started showing up: Santo Subito! Sainthood right away! It was a call for something the Church hadn't witnessed in centuries: canonization by popular acclaim.

John Paul's wise successor listened, and though he did not permit the spontaneous canonization, he dispensed with the usual five-year waiting period for opening the process (just as his predecessor had done for Mother Teresa). The rest would be up to God. Just nine years later, we see that God had been one of those holding a “Santo Subito!” banner.

In Saint John Paul the Great: His Five Loves (Totus Tuus Press, Lakewood CO, 2014) Jason Evert tells us who this great man was, both in terms of his life story and five of the great themes that marked his life and his pontificate. I found the biographical portion of the book (close to half of the content) both comprehensive and readable. If you were intimidated by George Wiegel's massive “Witness to Hope” (written at the invitation of, and with easy access to, Pope John Paul II himself), Evert's is much more approachable, and yet not at all dumbed down.

As interesting as the biographical section is, it is the second half of the book that really tells you who Pope John Paul II was and is for the Church. His “five great loves”—young people, human love, the Holy Eucharist, the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Cross—are his enduring testament. Of the five, I found Evert's treatment of Pope John Paul and human love (his wonderful “Theology of the Body,” of which Jason Evert is an internationally known presenter) and of the Cross to be the richest and possibly the most helpful to the everyday Catholic.

I recommend this book to anyone who ever wondered why the Catholic Church seems to have so much to say about marriage (when our culture is convinced that it is only about “two people who love each other”). Evert draws on Wojtyla's long experience in what we now call young adult ministry, in which he offered both teaching and counseling to couples through their engagement and marriage: not a single couple he guided ever suffered a divorce. Obviously, that celibate white male knew something that many couples today do not. Similarly, the presentation of the Cross as a mystery in which we are meant to participate was something very real for Saint John Paul. He learned early on that human suffering, whether slight or excrutiating, is something precious in the eyes of the Lord. He found his own life blessed by the offered-up sufferings of others, and when his turn came (the would-be assasin's bullet seems to have triggered an unending cascade of physical sufferings for the Pope), he willingly united his pain with “the sufferings of Christ for the sake of his body, the Church.”

Other books you might enjoy in the light of the historic canonization of two Popes this Divine Mercy Sunday:

Secret to Happiness: Wisdom from John XXIII(Pauline Books & Media, Boston, 2014): Excerpts from the writings of St. John XXIII (“There are three ways for a man to come to ruin: women, gambling and farming. My family chose the most boring way.”)

Be Not Afraid: Wisdom from John Paul II(Pauline Books & Media, Boston, 2014): a handbook of writings from Pope John Paul II

For children: ABoy Who Became Pope: The Story of Saint John Paul II (Pauline Books & Media, Boston, 2014), written and illustrated by Fabiola Garza. (Follow the link for instructions on a "Pope Party" to introduce kids to our new saints!)

Easter Octave Update

Today is Mom's first anniversary in Heaven. She died on the 4th Sunday of Easter, but her final illness manifested itself that Good Friday (I had gotten a voicemail from her while on retreat at Mundelein--where we spent Good Friday this year, too), so this weekend has been pretty intense for me. Add to that the funeral I attended while visiting New Orleans in March (my Dad's cousin, who was "Aunt Rosie" to us) and the fact that "Uncle Tommy" (yes, Rosie's husband of almost 60 years) died on Palm Sunday, along with the deaths of my dear friend's Mom ("Miss Linda") in March, and my childhood neighbor "Miss Betty" just two weeks ago, and it seems as though the whole year was marked with reminders that we were not created for the limited life of earth. Easter puts the ultimate period at the end of that sentence.

When I was first making plans for my imminent transfer, April 22 seemed like a good date, because our bookstore is closed on Easter Monday, giving me a day after the feast day to finalize everything and have a real "good-bye" with the sisters. A bit after the fact, it occurred to me that I would be leaving the States the day after Mom's anniversary, marking a kind of double transition in life. Only it is not working out quite as planned. My visa application was delayed, and--as it turns out--will only appear on the desk in the British Consulate on Tuesday, since they are closed on Good Friday and Easter Monday! That leaves me in a kind of Holy Saturday sort of Limbo, not knowing the day or the hour of my departure. I talked about this and more on the Catholic Weekend podcast, in case you missed it during the live stream on Saturday. (Be sure to check the program page to find out how to get a random holy card from me from my two and a half pound box of holy card detachments.)

We're still hoping, as a community, to have a good-bye today (taking advantage of a restaurant gift card we were given so long ago we are praying the restaurant will honor it!), but after that it is "hurry up and wait" until my passport, and the hoped-for visa, are delivered.

Meanwhile, it's the Easter Season and time again for praying the "Regina Coeli" morning, noon and evening.

Good Friday: The Son of God loved me...

"For each of us he gave his life, 

the life which was worth the whole universe,

and he requires us to do the same

for each other."

Clement of Alexandria

Getting Ready for Holy Week: Unleavened Bread Family activity

A week before Holy Thursday, here's a recipe for the unleavened bread that plays such a pivotal role in the Exodus story--and in the Last Supper. I found this (originally prepared for our children's magazine) as I was packing up...

At the preparation of the gifts at Mass, the priest prays: “Through your goodness, we have this bread to offer, which earth has given and human hands have made. It will become for us the bread of life.” Our shared work transforms the gifts of creation (wheat, water and grapes) into “the work of human hands.” So when we bring bread and wine for the Mass, we are really bringing ourselves. Through the prayer of consecration, our humble gifts are transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit into the body and blood of the Risen Lord Jesus. All that is left of the bread and wine are the sense-perceptible aspects: color, size, taste.

At the Last Supper, Jesus used the unleavened bread and pure wine of the Passover celebration to institute the sacrament of his Body and Blood. You and your child can experience something of the sign language of unleavened bread by making some yourselves. As you collaborate in making unleavened bread, consider the mercy and miracle of God: we bring our ordinary food and drink to the Mass, but God feeds us with the Body and Blood of his Son.

You will need

a cookie sheet, well dusted with flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

2 to 5 tablespoons water

(No salt!)

Preheat the oven to 375º. Put the flour in a small bowl. Add 2 tablespoons water, and mix well. If the mixture is too dry and crumbly to form into a ball of dough, add some drops of water and mix well. Add water carefully, a little at a time, until you form a ball of dough that will not stick to your hands. (You should be able to knead it like modeling clay.) Knead the dough until it is smooth and elastic.

Form the dough into a rectangle about as thick as two quarters stacked up. Place on non-stick or lightly greased baking pan. Using a knife, score the dough, as in the drawing below. (Scoring it will make it easy to break it neatly.)

Bake about 10-12 minutes at 375°. Cool on cooling rack. Refrigerate when cool. (Whole wheat flour and bread keep best when refrigerated.)

Bread made according to this recipe is valid for the Eucharist. Whether or not it will actually be used for Mass is a pastoral question that will be addressed according to your parish’s needs and traditions. This bread, like the more familiar round wafers, is not the Body of Christ unless it is consecrated through the Eucharistic prayer and the words of the Jesus spoken by the priest at Mass.

Lessons in detachment

The process underway.

Books in the basement. (The stack is a bit
higher now...)

My immanent transfer, even if only for one year, is providing me with more lessons in detachment than I expected. Besides the big ones--my local and national community and its initiatives, the choir at OLMC, the marvelous city of Chicago itself--there are the little daily detachments that keep popping up as I pack. Between the things that will be stored in the Chicago basement until my next assignment (mostly books!) and the things I will need in England (which need to fit into two 5--pound suitcases), there are objects that I have acquired along the way that don't really belong in either category.

It is surprisingly difficult to put them where they need to go, which in most cases is the pile for the Salvation Army. There are items I had to part with that I never wanted, never knew what to do with, but held on to out of respect for the person who gave them to me. There are sacred images (including about 30 rosaries!) that I didn't need, but held onto out of respect for the Person or mystery they represented. Every item seems to have a story, and I had to tell myself the story as I moved the object closer to the Salvation Army pile.

Then there is the technology. This is the hardest of all. Not only does every piece of technology seem to have a story (this is the first laptop I got, in 1998, from Dad, at CompUSA, before going to Rome; this was Dad's pocket PC; this was Mom's iPhone...), but in most cases the equipment works just fine (except for the iPhone, which bit the dust this morning when I attempted to change the battery myself). I remember just how much was paid for each piece of technology, too, which makes it even harder to put on the give-away pile! Even though my phone can probably do more, faster, and with higher quality, there is something in me that protests getting rid of functional equipment, even if it is out of date (Zip Drive, anyone? You never know...). But with the grace of God, I will see this through. (Even now I am reformatting the hard drive of that first clunky laptop, and am almost consoled that the LCD screen is beginning to fade.)

I'm still keeping that bag of cables for now. (You never know...)